by Philip Haldiman, The Arizona Republic

Councilman Sal DiCiccio, who represents the Arcadia district in this city where the David and Gladys Wright House is located, said the delay would allow time to start fundraising to purchase and preserve the iconic house with views of Camelback Mountain.

A potential buyer had come forward with intentions to preserve the house but dropped out while the house was in escrow this past weekend, DiCiccio said. Another potential buyer also backed out previously.

On Wednesday, city council is scheduled to vote on whether to rezone the 2,500-square-foot concrete house as a historical landmark, which would not preserve it but would place a three-year stay of demolition on the structure.

DiCiccio will ask for a continuance at least into January. Meanwhile, city staff also are asking for a delay to Dec. 19 because a city rezoning sign in front of the house did not properly notify the public of this week's meeting.

Up to this point, the councilman said he has seen two choices: Have the city impose the historical designation or try to find a buyer who would save the house, which spirals around a courtyard but also faces the surrounding desert.

"It's not been fair for one or two people to be shouldering this responsibility (by purchasing the home)," he said.

DiCiccio is challenging the public and preservation community to open their checkbooks.

Nearly 30,000 signatures have been obtained for an online petition in support of preserving the house. The Historic Preservation Commission has received hundreds of letters in support of preserving the home, designed for Wright's son and daughter-in-law in the 1950s. David Wright, 102, died in 1997; his wife, Gladys, 104, died in 2008. A development company bought the house on more than two acres in June.

"I don't believe in using a heavy-handed government to solve this problem. I will write the first check," DiCiccio said. "We're in fourth quarter, we have the ball and we need to keep moving down field."

Details of how such an effort would work would need to be worked out, DiCiccio said.

Steve Sells, co-owner with John Hoffman of 8081 Meridian development company that now owns the house, has said that if the rezoning passes, he will take the home off the market and make way for new homes in place of the Wright house in three years after the stay expires. His company bought the property for $1.8 million after the city approved a requested lot split.

Robert Joffe, a real-estate agent representing the owners, said a continuation would not guarantee the owners will keep the house on the market. But Joffe said he will keep trying to find solutions to save the home until 8081 Meridian officials tell him otherwise. The property now is listed for more than $2.5 million.

Joffe said he has tried to find a buyer, at one point working with a cooperative of individuals interested in preserving the home.

"We're trying everything we can, but there's been a lot of talk and nobody's stepping up," Joffe said. "I've had a lot of difficult transactions in my life, and this has been the hardest. It seems like every time I turn my head, I hit a wall. And the owners could take the house off the market at any time."

The house has been in and out of peril since the the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy discovered the lot the house is on was approved for the split in early June, indicating intentions to raze the structure and build at least two new homes.

Consequently, the city in mid-June initiated a process to designate the house as historic.

In early September, city staffers issued a demolition permit, which other officials later declared invalid because it was granted after the process for historic designation had begun. The new owners allowed to the demolition permit to expire at the end of October but had threatened a lawsuit.

Other Wright-designed properties in Arizona that are still standing include Taliesin West in Scottsdale, the Raymond Carlson, Benjamin Adelman, Jorgine Boomer and Norman Lykes houses, all in Phoenix; and the Arthur Pieper and Harold C. Price Sr. houses, both in Paradise Valley.

DiCiccio said the most recent prospective buyer of the David and Gladys Wright House refused to close because of fear of not remaining anonymous.

"These owners want to remain anonymous. They don't want people knocking on their doors," he said. "That's one person bearing the entire weight of what everybody else wants."